Posted by New NeoTuesday, June 12, 2018 at 7:00pm | 6/12/2018 - 7:00pm

Relativism, or a universal moral code?

“”Should Brazil keep its Amazon tribes from taking the lives of their children?” is the subtitle of a recent article in Foreign Policy. It describes traditional but still-existent customs of many Amazon tribes in Brazil that dictate killing handicapped children and even those one might define as transgendered, and a controversy in Brazil over whether a law should be passed that bans such practices (it already has passed one legislative body in that country and is being considered by the other):

The Kamayurá are among a handful of indigenous peoples in Brazil known to engage in infanticide and the selective killing of older children. Those targeted include the disabled, the children of single mothers, and twins — whom some tribes, including the Kamayurá, see as bad omens. Kanhu’s father, Makau, told me of a 12-year-old boy from his father’s generation whom the tribe buried alive because he “wanted to be a woman.”

One would think the answer to the question in the article’s subtitle would be “of course”—unless it’s being answered by cultural and/or moral relativists:

The Brazilian Association of Anthropology, in an open letter published on its website, has called the bill an attempt to put indigenous peoples “in the permanent condition of defendants before a tribunal tasked with determining their degree of savagery.”

Indigenous people around the world have been increasingly assimilated during the last century or more, but the Amazon remains one of the last holdouts to the process, for rather obvious reasons connected with the environment. Even if the law were to be passed, it might be somewhat moot if Brazil doesn’t exercise all that much influence over its indigenous Amazon tribes at this point. And in fact Brazil doesn’t exercise much influence over all its tribes:

In 1973, Brazil passed the Indian Statute, which groups indigenous individuals into three categories: those who live in complete isolation, those in limited contact with the outside world, and those who are fully integrated into mainstream society. The statute states that tribes such as Kanhu’s are only subject to federal laws depending on their degree of assimilation into Brazilian life. It is thanks to this language that indigenous people do not face prosecution for child killing…

If the bill passes the Senate, it will be tacked on as an amendment to the Indian Statute and require the government agencies that oversee indigenous communities to take a series of proactive measures. One will be the creation of an up-to-date registry of certain pregnant women so that the government can keep an eye on those (such as single mothers or women carrying twins) whose newborns might be targeted for death by their tribes. Another measure will require that the public prosecutor’s office be notified immediately of reports of human rights violations committed against newborns or any other stigmatized members of indigenous communities, including the elderly. The amendment also stipulates that any citizen who learns that an indigenous person’s life or safety is at risk but does not report it to the authorities will “be penalized under the applicable laws.”

So as I see it, the real subject matter of the law is how assertive the prevailing culture in Brazil is going to be in extending its legal reach to the indigenous peoples who have not really been part of it up till now.

It goes almost without saying—although I suppose it’s necessary to say it—that indigenous peoples develop customs that for the most part are motivated by and adapted to the conditions they face. But these people are now living in Brazil. The broad question that this issue raises is not limited to Brazil and is not limited to child-killing, but has to do with whether a country or a culture that is dominant has the courage of its own convictions and moral codes, and believes there are also universal moral codes that need to be enforced under all circumstances if possible.

…[W]hen told of an actual Sati [widow-burning] about to take place, [General Sir Charles James Napier] informed those involved that he would stop the sacrifice. The priests complained to him that this was a customary religious rite, and that customs of a nation should be respected. As recounted by his brother William, he replied:

“Be it so. This burning of widows is your custom; prepare the funeral pile. But my nation has also a custom. When men burn women alive we hang them, and confiscate all their property. My carpenters shall therefore erect gibbets on which to hang all concerned when the widow is consumed. Let us all act according to national customs.”

This story pits the customs of the victors against the customs of the vanquished, in an era in which the victors did not lack the courage of their convictions. That’s no longer as true in the west as it used to be, but there is also the following:

…[T]he Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention, ratified by Brazil in 2002…stipulates that indigenous peoples “shall have the right to retain their own customs and institutions, where these are not incompatible with fundamental rights defined by the national legal system and with internationally recognised human rights.”

According to [human rights lawyer] Barreto, under international law the way forward is obvious. “Certain cultural practices here are incompatible with human rights,” she says. “They need to be thwarted. There’s no middle ground.”

There is no contradiction between recognizing that the custom originally had utility and saying that the time has come to end it, and that the latter is the right thing to do. The real question is whether Brazil has the courage of its own convictions and a commitment to universal human rights, and the will and resources to actually back the law up in practice, if passed.

[Neo-neocon is a writer with degrees in law and family therapy, who blogs at neo-neocon.]

“Stop thinking that just because people agree with you that there needs to be a law. That is socialist thinking.”

Where dd I say that? Even a federal law applicable to all states prohibiting all abortion would have little effect on the number of abortions. The solution should be reasonable limits on abortion (not in 3rd trimester; counseling on post-abortion mental health, health of the mother, etc.), and a very strong non-secular groundswell of morality that the killing of an innocent human being in utero is no different than murder. (Not murder, but no different morally.)

The Brazilian Association of Anthropology, in an open letter published on its website, has called the bill an attempt to put indigenous peoples “in the permanent condition of defendants before a tribunal tasked with determining their degree of savagery.”

Not permanently; just until they stop being savages.

The fundamental problem here is the very modern concept of “genocide” as the ultimate crime, which includes not just the physical annihilation of any distinct people, but also the intentional destruction of any distinct culture. This is premised on the assumption that all cultures are equal and deserve to survive. But it is obvious that this is false. All people are created in God’s image and deserve equally to live; cultures, however, are created by people, and some are good while others are savage, evil, degenerate, and deserve to be destroyed.

The conquistadors, for all their own savagery, did the Mesoamericans a favor by destroying the Aztec culture, which badly needed it. Meanwhile Spain at the time could have done with an English or Dutch conquest, which unfortunately was not forthcoming. And so on. The British were right to wipe out the Thugs, and Christian missionaries to put an end to Polynesian cannibalism, but today these things would be called genocide.

I can even see that there’s SOME “utility” in rejecting these categories (the twins thing is simply a religious taboo), but assertively killing anyone in that class or group is plain murder. You can let them go to live humanely when they have the capacity to survive. Brazil can foster this approach, which is as good a compromise as any, I suggest.

While humanely ending the life of an individual who, due to physical handicap or mental disorder, may be dangerous to a himself or the tribe has merit, the conditions under which this becomes necessary become fewer and fewer as societies evolve. Practices, such as marrying off girls at age 13, forcing prepubescent boys to survive in the wilderness on their own for weeks to weed out the weaker ones and leaving old people to die of exposure when they lose their usefulness, is no longer necessary for societal survival. The pre columbian tribes of Brazil need to evolve to fit into today’s societies. This might not be comfortable for them, but it is necessary.

What people, other than historians, fail to realize about the past is that it is merely a lesson on how to live your life today. Islamic society is still stuck in 900 a.d.. while the Western world is in 2000 a.d. Mexico, and much of Latin America, is still in the 1800s. The secret to the success of the species is that it has to evolve and progress. No matter how much it does not wish to.

Christian society is NOT stuck in 1 A.D. What you, and many other people, fail to understand is that there is a difference between the Christian religion and Christian society. There is nothing in Christian teachings which contradicts what the scientific method has proven, or at least suggested, unless you are an uber-strict literalist. Also, though Christ was alive in 1 A.D., he was an infant. So, there was NO Christian school of religious teaching at that time.

Actually, I should have placed the average Muslim society at about 1400 A.D., rather than 900 A.D. Though there are parts of it which are actually fairly close to the level of current modern Western society, there still large areas which are struck in the first 500 years of the religion’s history.

Where is this christian society of yours? The Massachusetts Bay Colony was one. RI was another. PA a 3rd. MD was Catholic.

The Founding Fathers were mostly not religious. Some were deists. The Declaration and the Constitution don’t mention Jesus. While it is not mentioned explicitly, there is no question that Jefferson, Hamilton, Adams, Washington were OK with separation of church and state.

False. They were all religious, and none were deists. (Paine was not one of them, and they despised him for his deism.) The clique around Washington were mostly not trinitarian Christians, but they were definitely believers in a personal Creator Who is aware of our doings, accepts prayer, intervenes in our lives, and punishes sin and rewards virtue.

So we are stuck at a time when Christ was 1 year old? It would be better to say “stuck at 33 CE” if you really wanted a better date. I personally really needed what happened in 33 A.D. You are better off also but that would be a rather long history lesson for here.

Sir Frederick Hoyle, physicist, atheist, refused to accept the evidence. He labeled LeMaitre’s theory the “Big Bang” in an effort to disparage it. An expanding universe means a moment of creation. And that implies a creator. This would have destroyed his religion of atheism. He went to his grave refusing to accept the validity of LeMaitre’s theory.

I’ve heard other atheist scientists admit there were certain lines of inquiry that they refused to follow. Because it might lead to proof God exists.

Men of faith such as LeMaitre, Mendel, Copernicus, Newton, etc., could follow the evidence wherever it led them.

Einstein didn’t believe in a personal God. But his study of the universe convinced him there must be a God. He called it the “Supreme Intelligence.” Admittedly he didn’t believe in the God of the Bible. He didn’t believe in a personal God. But the fact that there were laws of nature, and that he could understand them, convinced him there must be a God.

“That deeply emotional conviction of a presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God.”

Is it possible for anyone to have his head planted more firmly up his @## than you?

This cannot be proven or disproven, and even if an entity claiming to be god appeared, it is likely that they are just more advanced technologically, so we still would not know if it was really a god, or just a higher tech con artist.

Muslims, yes. Islam, no. Islam can’t evolve. Try outlawing child marriage in an Islamic country. The clerics won’t let you. The Quran is the eternal, uncreated (this presents theological difficulties r.e. tawhid, but that’s a discussion for another day) word of Allah. In the Quran Allah pronounces that he has perfected religion. He also declares that Muhammad is model of the perfect man, and if you want to see paradise you must pattern yourself on him.

So if Allah perfected religion in the Quran, and that you must pattern yourself on a 7th century Arab (really, 9th century as there is no record of him in the 7th century, another difficulty that the inventors of Islam didn’t think through) how can Islam evolve? Do you know better than Allah? Do you know better than the perfect man?

The Ayatollah Khomeini lowered the marriage age in Iran from eighteen to nine as one of his first acts. He married a ten year old. In one of his books he advised fathers not to let their daughters see their first blood in their own home. In other words, marry them off before puberty.

The earth is flat. And there are seven of them. Our Earth rests on the back of a whale. Below the whale is a bull. Below that is dust. Only Allay knows what is below the dust. Semen forms between the backbone and the ribs. Oh, and women also have semen. Shooting stars are missiles that Allah hurls at demons who try to eavesdrop on conversations in heaven. The sun sets in a muddy pool at the end of the earth.

And anyone who says differently is a heretic.

I could go on. The Quran and the ahadith are full of such wonders. But, how can you expect the perfect religion and the model of the perfect man to evolve? Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on your point of view, most Muslims don’t poison themselves drinking camel urine as Muhammad prescribed.

In case my allusion to child marriage is unclear, Muhammad married his favorite wife Aisha when she was six, and consummated the marriage when she was nine.

This is going to be TMI I’m afraid. In Sunni Islam there is no minimum age for marriage. If the father an the groom agree (note that no one consults the girl) that the daughter is capable of withstanding vaginal sex she can be given to the groom at any time. If the father refuses to agree the girl can’t be handed off to the groom until she’s nine.

In Shia Islam the absolute minimum age for vaginal sex is nine. But the husband can gratify himself in other ways until then.

And nine years old means nine by the lunar calendar. Which per our calendar is eight and a few months.

Sorry if this offends anyone. But the clerics at Al Azhar and the Mullahs in Tehran WRITE about this garbage. And I had to read it. It made me sick to do it, but I had to as a Naval intel officer in order to understand the ideology of the threat.

Actually, Thou Shalt Not Kill, was apart of the Jewish faith, not the Christian faith. And it has been translated as Thou Shalt Not “MURDER”, rather than simply “kill”. Also, though Christ did not specifically tell his disciples to kill, he did tell them to buy a sword for protection. So, i guess Christians have a right to us violence, including deadly force, in self defense.

I don’t see how you can win that argument. I don’t mean with me. I mean with yourself. Whether it comes to cultural hegemony the difference between self-defense and murder seems to be in the eye of the beholder.

The 10 Commandments may have started as Hebraic, but they are definitely part of the Christian faith, too. So I am not sure what your point is. As far as I know the only prohibition against homosexuality is in the Old Testament. So it really doesn’t matter to christians?

“21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.

24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.

26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.

28 Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. 29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. 32 Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.”

The Greek word kreesis means “use, relations, function, especially of sexual intercourse.” Paul is not necessarily condemning homosexual desire, but he is clearly condemning homosexual acts. He does in other letters as well (Corinthians, Timothy). But this is the clearest condemnation of homosexuality in the New Testament.

Christ did not expressly condemn homosexuality, but he did condemn sexual impurity. Which is anything other than heterosexual sex within marriage.

Matthew 19:

4 “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’[a] 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’[b]? 6 So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

Got that? Male and female. Christ is citing Genesis 1 and 2. This is the only sort of sexual relationship Christ approved of. Christ didn’t need to lecture the Jews on the sin of homosexuality because they already knew the law. If Christ wanted to tell the Jews that homosexuality was really OK, this was his big chance. And he passed.

Paul on the other hand was preaching to the Gentiles in the Greaco-Roman world. So he had to actively condemn homosexuality because there was a lot of that going on. And, no, Paul didn’t merely condemn pederasty or temple prostitution. He very clearly condemned all homosexual activity.

Both Paul and Jesus were fully aware of “committed, loving” gay relationships. Paul was a man of the world. He was fully aware of such relationships as they were common knowledge in the ancient world. And not once did he, or Jesus (who if you believe he is God then you have to believe he’s omniscient) speak approvingly of them. Jesus only spoke approvingly of a man and a woman becoming one flesh.

You are a joke, YGIC. The New Testamant doesn’t dwell excessively on the issue of homosexuality. It’s in there if you are capable of reading. And Jesus doesn’t talk at all about incest, bestiality, or sacrificing your children to Moloch. Jesus would have looked at you like you’re crazy (and you may well be) and would have asked, “Do I really need to explain this to you?” The New Testament just assumes you know certain things are wrong in God’s eyes, so it dwells mostly on what is good in God’s sight.

Actually, Barry, I have to disagree. Communism has only been around for, what, 200 years? And I grant you that they’re no slouches at murder.

But Islam has been around for about 1400 years and Muslims have committed genocide like banshees out of h#ll in the name of Allah. Look up the genocide they committed in India. I’d estimate they killed 80 million Hindus, Sickhs, Jains, Buddhists, etc. Between 1000A.D. to 1500A.D. And it was another 300 years before the Indians overthrew their Muslim overlords, so it’s probably safe to estimate that massacred 120 million souls in that time. Unlike Stalin, Mao, or Pol Pot they didn’t have rifles or machine guns. They had to do all their murdering by hand. And that’s just on the Indian subcontinent. That’s not even counting their slaughters in Persia, the rest of the M.E., the Levant, the former Byzantine empire, North Africa, and Spain.

I share your contempt for the commies. But I have to contend it’s going to be a couple more centuries until they catch up with Islam’s body count.

Arminius, I credit the commies with 150+, but if there is another group close or exceeding that, yes it would be the Islamic cult of death. No argument from me. The grifter is a commie however…

I’m very familiar with Indian history, have traveled there many times as well. The Hindus and Sikhs still hate them passionately. I believe the muslim Indian population is around 200 million and growing.

This is too interesting for a mere comment. But I am fascinated by how a

12-year-old boy …. “wanted to be a woman.”

Isn’t that unnatural? How did he decide that without the corrupting influence of the LGBTQ community? Are you absolutists willing to admit that this is evidence that LGBTQ is a natural part of the human sexual spectrum or are you going to claim that it is still wrong because you have an absolute lock on truth and morality.

If the community within which he resided had been forced to let him live because of christian beliefs, should he have been allowed to follow his predilections or are you going to ‘pray the gay away’? (Yes I am well aware that he was not necessarily gay. But it is a nice turn of a phrase).

I also point out that the same western medicine that can treat many of those deformities and save those children has also figured out how to extract hormones and do surgeries that convert one gender to the other. That same medicine can do ultrasounds, contraception and abortion. Do you accept some of the modern miracles and reject others? Just who are the moral relativists?

This story is beautiful. If you don’t accept LGBTQ, then you are the relativists. BTW, this actually goes without saying since we now know that being gay isn’t a lifestyle choice.

Well, that’s an irrelevant grasp at a straw if I ever saw one. I’m content with the recognition I’ve received and full on it. Any more or less and I might end up a delusional troll that craves attention on a comment board.

People, purporting to be Christians, have killed people without just cause. And, they still do. And, people have used “the will of God” to justify all manner of heinous practices. This does not mean that they are following the teachings of Christ, as portrayed in the New Testament. And, unless one actually adheres to the teaching of a religion, they can not be truly said to be OF that religion.

Natural does not equal right or good. Lots of bad and wrong things are perfectly natural. It’s natural to want to steal, rape, and murder, which is why the “noble savage” does all three; it’s unnatural to restrain oneself and do what’s right, which is why people have to be trained to do that.

I don’t know what a ‘noble savage’ is. But ‘Hunter-Gatherer’ cultures are the most egalitarian societies that have ever existed. You would think libertarians would celebrate them.

Despite whatever moral faults you might judge that H-G societies have, they could probably teach you a thing or two about morality.

While it is fiction, you might wish to consider “The Gods Must Be Crazy”. Of course, you could just read some anthropological works. You will probably just go on pontificating. You do present the appearance of an expert; as with Trump, appearances aren’t everything.

You mean like the Aka and Ngandu tribes of Central Africa? They consider sex their “night work.” Anthropologists who have studied them have discovered they really enjoy their “work of the night.” When middle aged men casually mentioned that they had sex three or four times a night with their wives, at first they thought they were bragging. Then they talked to the women. The men weren’t bragging.

They also discovered something else. Neither tribe has words for homosexuality. The concept is simply unknown to them. For them sex is not only about pleasure but also procreation. Which why it’s their “night work.” They’re out to make babies. It’s enjoyable work, and they sing songs about it. They call sex “searching for children.” Some of the men have gone to work in the cities, and they’re aware of the concept of homosexuality. But they have to use the French words par derriere, or the abbreviation PD, meaning “from behind.” But most of these people have a really hard time understanding what the researchers are even talking about when they have to explain homosexuality to them.

So, yes, we could learn a lesson from primitive tribes. For them sex isn’t just a sport but serious business. If you’re gay in these cultures you simply aren’t doing your duty to your ancestors. We are committing cultural suicide by separating marriage from reproduction. They simply can’t make that leap, nor do they want to. And the peoples I’m familiar with think it’s sheer idiocy to even want to try to make that separation.

It seems to me that some of the natives in Brazil have not agreed to the “social contract” that those people who call themselves “Brazilian” have voluntarily (or at least tacitly) accepted. Although they live within the territory claimed by a sovereign nation, they have not surrendered to nor agreed to be bound by the constructions of that sovereign – that is they hold themselves sovereign and independent. Any attempt to impose “Brazilian” law upon them, no matter how enlightened or morally superior, reeks of tyranny. Tribes that would object must either first decide to agree to be held accountable to these laws, or they must be subjugated by force – an option currently out of favor.

Leave them alone. As they increase their ties to the western-style government of Brazil, they will, by necessity and agreement, relinquish their barbarity (as we see it).

Certainly, we consider ourselves morally superior. So did the Romans. But 500 years from now, what will be thought of us? Morality is not relevant, but not every society evolves morally at the same rate. How moral is it to drag people kicking and screaming out of their own culture (no matter how backwards in our eyes) in the name of morality and progress, so long as they do no injury to anyone outside of their own culture? Leave them alone. (Although Rags has a good idea – offer them options. But “options” should be “optional,” otherwise they’re not options.)

The problem with giving people living within the boundaries of a country the option of not being held to the laws of that country is that there is then no equality under the law. If you allow one group of people to kill children, but not another, then you have created a situation which will eventually destroy the nation. This idea that a small “culture” somehow trumps the dominant culture is what destroys nations and societies. It is what has caused the schism in the US.

We don’t “consider” ourselves morally superior, we are morally superior, at least those of us who don’t murder unborn babies. As for what people will think in 500 years, it doesn’t matter. Perhaps they really will be our superiors, or perhaps they will have degenerated and will be our inferiors; either way, their opinion of us is irrelevant, because it could just as easily be false as true. Meanwhile we have a duty to destroy their savage culture, at least to the extent of stopping this horrific practice, whether or not they consent.

Multiculturalism is an ideology, not a fact. It’s the idea that it’s good to have multiple cultures in a society, the more the better, and that all cultures are equal. And this extreme example demonstrates dramatically why its false. It’s obvious to any normal person that this horrible practice must be stopped, and yet multiculturalism says it shouldn’t be. Therefore multiculturalism is wrong.

So basically these tribes are lost Democrats. Sounds like they’ve implemented the next phase of of Leftist social engineering. Since they don’t have the technology via abortion, they have to deal with it post-birth.

But he was the male sex, and could only maintain a pretense of feminine gender attributes (e.g. sexual orientation).

LBGQT… transgender spectrum.

Worse, in a progressive society, where they target prepubescent and adolescent boys and girls, he would be subject to indoctrination and even medical corruption in order to realize a liberal (i.e. divergent) outcome.

1. Utopian non-interference. Let pre-state people live as they always have by isilating them from the rest of the world. No trade, no medicines, no communications devices. Keep these peoples ignorant of the rest of the world and keep everyone (including anthropoligists) out of their reservations.

But, it’s too late for that, isn’t it? If for no other reason than because all of these peoples already possess some awareness of the outside world.

2. Offer tribal members freedom to assimilate to the outside world. But, in order to make an informed choice one must understand what one is choosing; therefore, there must be an intermediate step in which tribal members are given a balanced view of what that outside world is like. But, what if tribal members refuse to re-integrate anyone who has opted for that intermediate step?

3. Emphatially YES. They seem to have gone to extraordinary trouble to avoid option 3.

Besides, they would be admitted at the lowest rung of the socioeconomic ladder. Do you think there is anyway they get to keep their land? Even if the government ‘grants’ them that right, the greedy and the powerful will encroach until they are wiped out or forced into favelas.

Will they be better off because they have been forced to replace their fairy tale with yours? That was the rationale for the enslavement of people throughout the Western Hemisphere. Have you learned nothing?

The Brazilian government seems to be going at this in something of a half-assed way, which isn’t possible in the long run. It really comes down to a simple decision of either assuring that these people remain as isolated as possible, and are left alone to do as they’ve always done — or to force them to adapt to modern Brazilian culture and law. There is no partial way to either preserve their existing culture, or make them conform to what is generally seen as a civilized way of life.

If these people are exposed to much contact with the outside world, their culture will eventually disappear, and forcing them to comply with standards that are alien to them will greatly accelerate their transformation. Their way of life is not going to survive for long unless civilization in Brazil is exterminated — it’s a question of whether they want to leave them alone to preserve it a while longer, or begin changing them now. The idea that primitive cultures can be preserved in the modern world is nonsense — contact with the outside world will change, and eventually eliminate, them.